Exhaust leak? - sounds like a old VW engine!?

[kenratboy]

My car (see sig) seems to have a strange noise going on.

At idle (I hear it more when its cold) and at a higher RPM, there is a very mild 'clattering' noise, like a older diesel car at idle. It does not sound 'bad', but just not right.

My gut feeling is there is an exhaust header leak somewhere, and at that, a very mild one.

If this is true (or if you think it is something else), is it a big deal? Will it be hard to fix?

I figure I might as well bite the bullit and get this taken care of before it gets bad.

Thanks!

[EKam]

I'm betting my money on the flex pipe.

Go to a shop to lift your whole car up... you can feel where the leak is coming from by putting your hand close to the exhaust (just don't touch it). You will feel the air leaking out obviously.

[kenratboy]

Hmmm, sound better than pulling my exhaust header (or is that a footer ).

I think I might schedual an appointment to get my car in on Monday, and pick it up later than day or something.

Get everything done.

[SmokingTires]

Where is the sound coming from? Is it coming from more of the middle of the car?

If so, you may have a small hole in your resonator. I have the same thing right now. It is loud around idle, but not as notice able at high RPM.

If it was somewhere else in the exhaust system, you would only hear noise, not a chatter. That has to be caused by deflection of noise. Which would happen inside the cat, resonator, and muffler. But I doubt it is your muffler.

So eaither the cat or the resonator is my guess.